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If you’ve been following the advice of tech experts when it comes to apps, there’s a chance you’ve already deleted the Facebook app and have given some serious thought to pruning your list of game apps (like Angry Birds, for example) But one app may have escaped your list. This is an app that isn’t just draining your data and possibly your battery, but could be putting your privacy at risk. Privacy experts say you should be deleting this one app from your phone ASAP.
Free VPN’s
VPN’s are virtual private networks that create a private network from a public internet connection. Sounds great on its face. But if you have a VPN hosting app on your phone, it’s best to delete it, especially if you are using critically vulnerable apps such as SuperVPN, and IPVanish VPN, advises Eric McGee, Senior Network Engineer at TRGDatacenters.
“There have been numerous incidences where VPN hosting apps such as these have opened the gateway to Man in the Middle Attacks,” McGee says. “Such attacks entail third parties eavesdropping on, or even altering communications, and often result in the theft of personal data, and login credentials, and the victim being spied on.
Moreover, majority of these apps demand that you surrender your private data to them first before they can begin masking your identity. That is a huge red flag for anyone looking for a reliable VPN solution.”
Abhijith VM, digital marketing expert at ClaySys Technologies, says there are plenty of types of apps you should delete from your phone regardless of the OS, but that in wake of a recent scandal surrounding Express VPN, focusing on VPNs is a must.
“You should delete any free VPN you have installed on your iPhone. You know what they say - Nothing is free. If a product is free, then you are the product,” Abhijith says. “Not so surprisingly, VPN apps have been notoriously known for logging their customer's data - which is ironically the one thing they are supposed to prevent. “If you don't want your personal information such as location, your phone device IDs, and many other metrics your phone stores locally which are accessible by most apps, then it's better to stay away from free VPNs.”
